Dec 17, 2009

So, Sunday ended up being a lazy day. I didn’t get to go to Dunk Island or diving. I slept in until like 1030 then made pancakes for everyone. Vinny found the wallabies for me to take pictures of, so I promised him breakfast. I didn’t have all of the ingredients or measuring utensils to make it properly from scratch so I had to wing it. It took a few tries, but it turned out decent. Everyone ate it even though I insisted I wasn’t expecting them to. I figured syrup would save the doughy pancakes, but turns out syrup here is disgusting! They don’t have maple syrup, and the other stuff, which I’ve never had before, is horrible. I was really grossed out. Sunday night we went out to the local bar, The Shrubbery. It’s a cute place. They have some drink specials and everyone goes so we had a good time.
We planned a huge picnic for Monday. Joe was going to take off work and we had the time planned so we could all make it for a few hours. Peta suggested a watering hole for swimming and we figured we could take the bus for a few hours, have a picnic and swim, then make it back before anyone had more work to do. Anyway, turns out Joe got caught not going to work so he had work. No one knew where the watering hole was and Peta wasn’t in. Only Rob, Dani, and I wanted to make the typical lunch, so we went to the store and bought food, made sandwiches. Annika couldn’t leave the bus and her boyfriend was around so she didn’t want to go. So basically, it was Rob, Dani, Engin, and I. Sven and Vinny went fishing at Bengil Bay, but they ended up meeting later. Instead of going to the strange watering hole, Deb suggested a rainforest walk, so we went there. She said that there was a creek with a rope swing, so we figured it’d be fun. The walk was really short and the water was really shallow, so it didn’t seem safe. We didn’t see much wildlife but we heard noises of animals and the trees were beautiful. Our lunch was very nice and relaxing, but not quite what we had initially expected. When we got back I had to get to work, but everyone was pretty disappointed in our trip, so they went to Alligator Alley, which is a deeper creek and doesn’t have any alligators. This time Joe and Annika could go, so everyone went but me. They came back and said it wasn’t that great so I felt better haha.
Tuesday I went to Cairns with Dez, one of the owners. He likes to take trips around to other hostels and meet the people that work there hoping that they will refer their guests to us if anyone asks. Cairns is the biggest town North of us and travelers usually fly into Cairns and go south to Sydney, or vice versa, and since we’re so close to Cairns, people head to Mission Beach pretty much straight from Cairns. Anyway, He asked that I come along, as I’d be the person taking the reservations from these people. We left at like 9am and the drive was about an hour and a half. It was a really pretty drive and Dez was good company, so we chatted about his skydiving career and his and Peta meeting and family stuff. He was really good about explaining what was around us. There were some mountains, cities, and crops, and he made sure to point them out and all of that. I saw a butt load of sugar cane and banana fields. It was a really pretty drive. Most was a two-lane road, which I found a little absurd when traveling such a long distance but it was nice. We made about 12 stops and different hostels and info stations and I was amazed at how friendly everyone was. I know at Lewis if people came in to talk to someone that didn’t have an appointment everyone was always busy or irritated to talk to them. Here, everyone was excited to talk to us and took the time to show us around and all of that. I guess because we’re hoping to get on their good side, they’d like to do the same. Circle of love or whatever. Either way, I did get to meet a lot of managers of the hostels and travel agencies, which is a huge deal if I ever need a job at any of those places. Mission Beach is pretty small, and our hostel is only one of three or four in the area, but people knew who we were and were really pleased with the hostel. I guess I always heard from the owners that we had a good place, but I never knew how anyone else felt. People were saying how they only send people to us all the time and they loved it when they were there. They could be lying, but they sounded genuine. Midway through the day we had lunch at a sushi place (I was so happy about that). I have never been to the places with the rotating belt with food on it. I just watched plate after plate of sushi pass in front of me and I could choose whatever I wanted! I had a seaweed salad roll, a tiger roll, and a salmon roll. Oh man, it was perfect. We stopped at a few other places and Dez had some buddies at a few so we had a drink (rather, he had a drink) and visited for a bit. We got back and I found that there was a poker competition planned for later that night. I don’t really play much cards but I figured oh well. There were about 20 people playing, so we had four groups of five, then the winners went on to the next round. I was one of the final two in the first round. Me and Jade were kind of going round and round so when we finally got down to about an equal amount of chips, we both just went all in and I lost. I was close to winning, it was a pretty close one. I hate poker, but I wanted to win the money, $40! I lost that last hand, but I was pretty proud of myself.
Anyway, random stories: I’ve decided that I don’t walk on the beach as much as I’d like, so I’m going to start taking an evening walk a few times a week. I’d love the company, but no one ever wants to go with so I’ll go alone. I NEVER have alone time, so it’d be nice to have some peace on the beach. I love that toilets here have two options for flushing, half flush and full flush. I didn’t know the difference and I was always scared to press the other button, but I asked someone, and I think that’s just brilliant!